Revelation; Project complete, index, summary

v6; "The Lord God has sent his angel to show..."
In the opening verse of the book, it was Christ who sent the angel.
The implication is that "Christ sending" and "God sending" comes to much the same thing.

v6; "...what must soon take place".
As in the first verse of the book. The suggestion I made, in relation to that verse, was that "soon" should be measured from the moment of the
beginning of the persecution/tribulation. Because the point of this book is to be comfort in a time of tribulation, so the victims need to know that
it will not last long.

v7; "Behold, I am coming soon".
As in the case of "coming like a thief" in ch16 v15, this is taken to be from Christ himself, promising his "Return".
The New Testament has different ways of speaking about this event. In the gospels, Jesus speaks of the future arrival in judgement of the "Son of
Man". Paul talks about the judgemental event which he calls "the Day of the Lord Jesus". At the beginning of Acts, two angels tell the disciples
that Jesus will return "in the same way" that he left (i.e., presumably, direct from heaven). Though described in different ways, the event was
evidently expected by the early church.

v7; "Behold, I am coming soon";
But who, exactly, is making this promise? Obviously we take them as the words of Christ, because they refer to the return of Christ .But if we
carefully follow through the previous verses, it seems that the speaker is still the angel who began talking to John in ch21 v9, "one of the seven
angels who had the seven bowls".

But I think this is not such a pardox as it looks. if God sends an angel, or "messenger", it is not necessarily unusual for that messenger to speak
in the first person when describing what God is going to do.
A televsion image makes a good analogy. The television image of a person, like the President, is not really that person. It is just a mass of moving
electrons. Nevertheless, it speaks in the first person; "I am your President, and this is what I am going to do".
Similarly an angel, submerged in the role of mouthpiece, may talk as God.

I understand that the Jehovah's Witnesses like to draw the connection between this verse and ch21 v9, and say, in effect- "There you are, this
proves that Christ is only an angel".
But it is made very clear in the very first verse of this book that Christ is the sender of an angel.
There is a difference between the sender and the one who is sent, between the ultimate speaker and his mouthpiece.

v7: Ch1 v3 blesses those who read aloud, those who hear, and those who keep the words of this prophecy.
In this verse, the only blessing mentioned is on those who keep the words.
Presumably the moral is that "keeping" the words, absorbing them and trusting in them, is the real point, the ultimate object. The reading aloud and
the hearing the words read are simply stages in the progress towards that objective.

v8; "I John am he who heard and saw these things".
Why is this comment being made at this point?
Paul sometimes comments on the fact that he's picking up the pen to write a few words. We believe this is because the rest of the letter is being
dictated.
So I suppose it's possible that the same thing is happening here. Most of the rest of Revelation has been a dictated report, and he is now taking the
pen himself to add a few additional words.

vv8-9 John falls down to worship the angel and is rebuked.
This episode is almost identical with one that occurs in ch19, apparently with the same angel. At least both angels can be ultimately identified, by
tracing back the conversation, as "one of the seven angels with the bowls".
This angel is so identified in ch21 v9
The angel of ch19 is ideentified in ch17 v1.

vv8-9 There is one difference between this episode and the similar episode in ch19.

In ch19, the angel was a fellow-servant with those "who hold the testimony of Jesus".
In these verses, he is a fellow-servant with "those who keep the words of this book".
The obvious implication is that the words of this book are the testimony of Jesus.
In other words, as I've maintained at several points in these threads, the Christian gospel is at the heart of the book Revelation and inseparable
from it.

I would like to offer another resource for your work. Which I really appreciate all your thought and work. This is why I wanted to see if any of this
can be of help to you. I'm looking forward to see what you may think.

I assure you having read the bible so many times, there is not one sentence that states that Jesus is god... let me make it clear... NO SENTENCE IN
THE BIBLE (NKJ ORIGINAL BIBLE) STATES THAT JESUS CHRIST IS GOD... it says he is the messiah, it says he is the son of god, it says that he is the
saviour.. BUT NOWHERE does it say that JESUS is﻿ GOD... not in my church (orthodox) Only the corrupted Vatican." - comment from random Protestant on
Youtube.

Pope Pius VIII: "The heretics have disseminated pestilential books everywhere, by which the teachings of the impious spread, much as a cancer. To
counteract this most deadly pest, spare no labor." (Traditi Humilitati # 9, May 24, 1829)

Thank you for offering that source of information.
I've looked at the site, and it's always interesting to see the way that other people think.
However, their approach is not something I could use to improve my own understanding of Revelation.

The reason is that they're operating on assumptions which I cannot share. They are the kind of assumptions which come naturally to someone who's
experienced a Catholic upbringing, but they don't have anything to offer to other people.
For example, the site is critical of the Catholic church, but the criticism comes from a purely Catholic viewpoint. You have to believe in a divinely
appointed human leadership of the church before you can come to the view that the present hirerarchy is illegitimate only because it was invalidly
elected. For those of us who don't believe there is any such thing as a divinely appointed human leadership, the whole "sedevacantist" position is
completely irrelevant.

Similarly the sweeping condemnation of the entire Protestant community as non-believers in the divinity of Christ. This could only be made by someone
living in an ivory tower without any kind of contact with members of the Protestant faith. It is a demonisation of the Protestant world based on
complete ignorance of that world.

So that site is designed for adherents to a particular Catholic belief-system, and has nothing to offer to people outside that belief-system.

Incidentally, I notice in your linked source a prediction of the destruction of Rome on August 17th 2011.
Since August 17th 2011 has been and gone without any sign of the destruction of Rome, that seems to confirm that your source has no great value for
the interpretation of prophecy.

This instruction makes it important to understand who is speaking in this verse.
I've encountered Jehovah's Witnesses who would argue that Christ is speaking here, and triumphantly claim the verse as proof that Christ should not
be worshipped. But this is a misunderstanding.

We were told right at the beginning of the book that Christ had sent his angel to deliver his revelations. The speaker who is addressing John in these
chapters is not Christ himself, but the angel sent by Christ. Nevertheless, the angel, acting as spokesman, speaks in the first person when talking
about Christ and his intentions, because that is what angels tend to do. In a previous post, I compared this with the behaviour of a man's image on a
television screen; the image speaks in the first person, as though it were the man himself, but in reality it is nothing more than a collection of
electrons moving around the screen

It seems that John is sufficiently confused by this (twice over, because it happens in ch19) to offer the angel, the messenger and spokesman, the kind
of adoration which belongs only to God. (This is something like kissing the television screen when a favourite individual appears on it) The angel is
so shocked by this behaviour that it is jolted out of its role of passing on God's words, and says something for once in its own right. "You must
not worship me" means "You must not worship this angel".It is the angel, not Christ, who is "only a fellow-servant".

The second commandment in Exodus tells us not to worship images of God.
John now learns that this is such a strict command that it even applies to the image God has sent himself., as part of a vision.

"Do not seal up the words, for the time is near".
This instruction, given by the angel that speaks for Christ, revokes the instruction given in Daniel ch12 v4;
"Seal the book until the time of the end".
That verse in Daniel is part of the explanation of the future given by the bronze/golden man who appears to Daniel in Daniel ch 10. We must associate
that figure with Christ as well, since the "angel of Christ" who appears in Revelation ch1 has a similar appearance.

The figure in Daniel's vision said there would be "a time, two times, and half a time" before "all these things would be accomplished". This
declaration has already been "updated" and amended by the angel's declaration in Revelation ch10, that there should be "time no longer" or "no more
delay".

That declaration of "no more delay" comes just before the blowing of the seventh and final trumpet. It is applicable to a period when the End Times
have already started. Presumably the same is true of "the time is near", viz. that it will become true in the End Times. The application of the
prophecies in Revelation will become obvious in the time when they are being fulfilled.

v11 The apparent gist of this verse is that both the righteous and the unrighteous should remain in their present state. One can understand why he
should want the righteous to remain righteous, but why would he not want the evildoer to cease doing evil?

The problem is similar to Isaiah ch6 v10, when Isaiah is told to preach,
"lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
And understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed".
It is sometimes suggested that what appears to be a declaration of God's intentions is more in the nature of a prediction. God is saying that they
will not listen and turn and be healed, apart from a minority.
Perhaps this verse in Revelation should be taken in the same way.

The best way to understand this verse might be to take vv10-11 together as an "updating" of Daniel ch4 v10, where the message was that the message
should be sealed up until the distant end, and in the meantime "many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall increase."
Suppose we take "many shall run to and fro" as describing an alternation between being holy and being evil. "Knowledge" (of God) shall increase, but
people will be slow to make the final choice between following and rejecting him.

Then these two verses in Revelation would be "updating" Daniel by saying that the message should no longer be sealed up, because "the time is near",
and in consequence there will be no time left for people to hesitiate between the two choices. They will no longer be "running to and fro". Their
choice will become final.

v12;
"I am coming soon"- this repeats what has been said as recently as v7
"I will repay every one recompense for what he has done"- this would relate to the general judgement of the world described at the end of ch20, when
"books were opened" and men were judged by what was written in them, ie by what they had done.

v13; In this verse, the speaker describes himself in three ways-
1) The Alpha and the Omega
2) The first and the last.
3) The beginning and the end.

Evidently these three descriptions have the same meaning, and they identify the speaker as the origin and source, as well as the ultimate end, of
everything that is. In other words, he is the Creator.

It's important to note where we have met these statements before.
#1 is the way the Lord God Almighty describes himself in ch1 v8.
#2 is the way that Christ (speaking through his angel) describes himself in ch1 v17, and also in ch2 v8.
#1 and #3, taken together, are the way that the ambiguous speaker "who sat upon the throne" describes himself in ch21 v6.

By means of these statements, in short, Christ and the Creator God are tied together in the closest possible way.
The conclusion is unavoidable; as far as Revelation is concerned, Christ is God. There is no distinction between them.

This is explained by ch7 v14, which tells us that those who have come through the great tribulation have washed their robes "in the blood of the
Lamb".
That is, it refers to the atoning death of Christ, and the consequent removal of the sinful state, something which applies to the righteous in
general.

There's an alternate image which can be found, e.g., in ch6 v11, where they are given new robes. This goes back ultimately to the vision in
Zechariah ch3, where the high priest Joshua is given clean robes to replace his filthy garments. However, these two slightly different images have the
same significance.

ch22
v14; "They may enter the city by the gates".
This is the implied converse of the statement at the end of the previous chapter, that the unclean would be excluded from the gate.
This "entrance" need only happen once, because the premise of these end chapters is that they remain there permanently.

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